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Cornwall Eyre
(1302)The justices itinerant held an eyre at Launceston for the county of Cornwall from 6 October to 18 November 1302. Details of the judicially more interesting proceedings are recorded in the Year Book of 30 Edward I, edited with facing translation by A. J. Horwood.

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Grantees of offices, commissions and pardons
(1350-1354)The Patent Rolls are the Chancery enrolments of royal letters patent. Those for the 24th to the 27th years of the reign of king Edward III (25 January 1350 to 24 January 1354) were edited for the Public Record Office by R. F. Isaacson, and published in 1907. The main contents are royal commissions and grants; ratifications of ecclesiastical estates; writs of aid to royal servants and purveyors; and pardons.

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London, Essex and Hertfordshire clerks, clerics, monks and clergy
(1361-1374)Ordinations to first tonsure, acolytes, subdeacons, deacons and priests, from the register of bishop Simon de Sudbury of London. London diocese covered Middlesex, Essex and part of Hertfordshire; the ordinations also attracted many persons from distant dioceses bearing letters dimissory from their ordinaries, and these are duly noted in the text. Many of these clerks would not go on to obtain benefices and remain celibate. The lists of subdeacons, deacons and priests state the clerks' respective titles, i. e., give the names of the person or religious house undertaking to support them. Monks and friars ('religious') are listed separately, and the lists of subdeacons, deacons and priests are also separated into beneficed and not beneficed (or 'not promoted'). The acolyte lists are unusual in giving a parish or diocese of origin.

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English knights at Agincourt
(1415)At the battle of Agincourt, 25 October 1415, English forces under king Henry V inflicted a signal defeat on the French forces led by the Constable D'Albret. The English are said to have numbered about 15,000 men. This list of 'The Names of the Dukes, Erles, Barons, Knights, Esquires, Serviteurs and others that wer withe the Excellent Prince King Henry the Fifte at the Battell of Agincourt' is of the leaders of the English forces and of the knights (lances) in their retinues: of the archers, for which the battle is famous, hardly a handful are named. Nicholas Harris Nicolas, the antiquarian, found this list accidentally among the manuscripts in the British Museum, and published it, with an extensive account of the battle, in 1827.

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Landowners and tenants in Norfolk
(1345-1485)Inquisitions ad quod damnum were held by the appropriate sheriff or escheator (or other officer in whose bailiwick the matter in question might lie) to investigate cases in which the royal or public interest might be damaged by proposed alienation or settlement of land (especially alienation to religious uses, into mortmain). The key findings from these inquisitions were as to the tenure of the land and the service due from it; its yearly value; the lands remaining to the grantor, and whether they sufficed to discharge all duties and customs due from him; and whether he can still be put upon juries, assizes and recognitions, so that the country be not burdened by his withdrawal from them. Generally speaking, this process had the makings of a system of licensing such alienations, and raising money in proportion to the valuations. Equally, there are many items that deal with subjects such as the closing of public roads, the felling or inclosing of woods, or the proposed grant of liberties or immunities. A calendar of these inquisitions from the 19th year of the reign of king Edward III to the 2nd year of Richard III was prepared by the Public Record Office and published in 1906. We have now indexed this calendar by surname and county. Most of the individuals appearing in the calendar are either pious individuals seeking to make grants to religious bodies for the sake of their souls; or landowners securing the disposition and settling of their real estate. But some other names do appear - tenants, trustees, chaplains and clerks.

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Landowners and tenants in Suffolk
(1345-1485)Inquisitions ad quod damnum were held by the appropriate sheriff or escheator (or other officer in whose bailiwick the matter in question might lie) to investigate cases in which the royal or public interest might be damaged by proposed alienation or settlement of land (especially alienation to religious uses, into mortmain). The key findings from these inquisitions were as to the tenure of the land and the service due from it; its yearly value; the lands remaining to the grantor, and whether they sufficed to discharge all duties and customs due from him; and whether he can still be put upon juries, assizes and recognitions, so that the country be not burdened by his withdrawal from them. Generally speaking, this process had the makings of a system of licensing such alienations, and raising money in proportion to the valuations. Equally, there are many items that deal with subjects such as the closing of public roads, the felling or inclosing of woods, or the proposed grant of liberties or immunities. A calendar of these inquisitions from the 19th year of the reign of king Edward III to the 2nd year of Richard III was prepared by the Public Record Office and published in 1906. We have now indexed this calendar by surname and county. Most of the individuals appearing in the calendar are either pious individuals seeking to make grants to religious bodies for the sake of their souls; or landowners securing the disposition and settling of their real estate. But some other names do appear - tenants, trustees, chaplains and clerks.

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Tenants, founders and incumbents of Yorkshire chantries
(1546-1548)Chantries were established to perform services for the souls of their founders and other faithful dead, including annual obits and anniversaries at which alms were usually distributed. The chantries could be at an existing altar in a parish church, a new altar in a side chapel of an existing church, in a new chapel in the churchyard or some miles from an existing church: few were founded before 1300, and most date from 1450 to 1500. Hospitals were places provided by similar foundations to receive the poor and weak; there were also religious guilds, brotherhoods and fraternities, and colleges (like large chantries at which three or more secular priests lived in common). An Act of Parliament of 1545 gave king Henry VIII the power to dissolve such chantries, chapels, &c., the proceeds to be devoted to the expenses of the wars in France and Scotland. Commissioners were appointed 14 February 1546 to survey the chantries and seize their property, and from 1546 to 1548 the commissioners produced these certificates giving brief details of the establishment and nature of each foundation, with an inventory of valuables and rental of lands. The individuals named in the certificates are thus the founder, the present incumbent, and the tenants whose rents provided the chantry's income. All the surviving certificates were edited by William Page for the Surtees Society, and published from 1892.

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Official Papers
(1547-1580)The State Papers Domestic cover all manner of business relating to England, Ireland and the colonies, conducted in the office of the Secretary of State as well as other miscellaneous records.